Montipora bleaching?

[DiverDave32]

Hi All,

Is this coral bleaching? I increased my intensity on my Maxspect Razor lights about 1 week ago by 5%. This montipora has been in my tank for about 2 months and is showing great growth but is showing a white film on the surface.

I just wanted to confirm whether this was bleaching and I should turn my intensity back down or something else. It still appears to be growing rapidly. Will it adapt. The original monti in the center appears more affected but the new growth much less so.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[DiverDave32]

I should also note that the monti was more a dark brown slightly red colour before and is turning a more attractive purple colour minus the white areas.

 

[DiverDave32]

I started an ATS due to the presence of hair algae in the tank about 2 weeks ago. It is slowly starting to grow algae but there is still quite a bit in the display. My phosphates however are now reading 0.00 using a Hanna checker versus 0.1 a few weeks ago. Could this also be a cause for the whitening. I have phosphorous should I dose it despite having hair algae in the display?

My nitrates are around 12 PPM now versus 16 ppm a few weeks ago so slowly dropping.

Thanks for any feedback.

Dave

 

[DiverDave32]

Anybody have any advice?

 

[BradR]

What’s your alkalinity at? My montipora don’t like low nutrients combined with high alk. Lowering the alk to below 9 or even better to around 8 makes them happy pretty quickly. You’ve changed two variables at the same time so it’s hard to know the cause of your problem. If it were me I’d back down on the lighting, slowly lower the alk to 8.5 or lower, and feed a touch more. Good luck.

 

[DiverDave32]

Thanks for the reply. My Alk is at 8.1. It seems like the original frag is bleaching but the new growth looks good. I have added a little phosphorous over the last few days and am at 0.03 right now. Will try to maintain around that level. I previously went down to 0 and had a major issue with dinos so definitely do not want to go too low.

I'll also reduce the light intensity slightly and give things a few weeks to see how things go.

 

[drs2140]

It was most likely the lack of nutrients. Keep them detectable and I bet the color will come back fine with some time